Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] The High Court's recent decision in the landmark WorkPac v Rossato case was a huge victory for multinational, multibillion-dollar labour hire firms. It was also a huge victory for the Morrison government, which spent $300,000 of public money—taxpayers' money—supporting WorkPac's case. But it was a sickening blow to mine workers who have seen their jobs outsourced to labour hire firms and have been forced onto permanent casual contracts on less pay with no paid leave. Degradation of pay and conditions in the mining sector is emblematic of what is happening across every sector of the economy, where middle-class jobs are being stripped of middle-class pay and conditions.

A lot of members of the government claim to speak for miners and their families. Then they come to Canberra and fight tooth and nail to strip away their rights at work. They do the site visit, put on the hi-vis vests, smear a bit of coal dust on their faces and tell people in Central Queensland or the Hunter that they are on their side, and then they pay $300,000 of taxpayers' money to support a labour hire company in a court case against a casual mine worker.

In recent weeks, the Senate Select Committee on Job Security has heard directly from mine workers, from unions, from local communities in Queensland and Western Australia, from mining companies and from labour hire companies. They had a lot of things to say about labour hire. Frankly, the mine workers and the local communities had nothing good to say. We heard that the big mining companies, some of the richest and most profitable companies in Australia, are shifting their workforce over to labour hire companies so they can cut their pay and stop mine workers from speaking out about their conditions or safety issues and so that workers are easier and cheaper to dispose of. Some companies, like BHP, have even learned from one of the most antiworker companies in Australia, Qantas. BHP have set up their own internal labour hire company so that BHP can undercut itself on pay and conditions—the Alan Joyce effect, I call it.

Rob Foot, a retired mine worker and AMWU member from Central Queensland, said:

I was working for United Group Resources … for 14 years, and one day the mines came along and said every contractor onsite had to work for WorkPac. These people wanted to reduce my wages by half, and on a casual basis …

…   …   …

… I went from $150,000 to $70,000 and had to pay for my transport … accommodation on site … inductions … medical … training …

He said:

… whereas in the past that was all supplied by the employer.

That is the same company the Morrison government just spent $300,000 of public money to support in the High Court.

The Minerals Council, a lobby group for mining companies, admitted that casuals on labour hire actually get paid 24 per cent less on average, doing exactly the same roster and exactly the same job, than permanent mine workers operating at the mines. This is obviously a rort. It's plain and simple.

Wayne Goulevitch, another mine worker from Central Queensland and a member of the miners union, said he hasn't seen a new full-time worker join his crew in over seven years. They are all being phased out in favour of labour hire casuals on less pay. He said.

Any First World country that declares they are a fair and just society while having two people doing the exact same job and being paid differently—tens of thousands of dollars differently— … is demeritorious.

I commended Mr Goulevitch for his restraint, because I'd describe it as a bloody disgrace. What is even more disgraceful is that we have a Prime Minister who was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to keep that system alive. It is indefensible.

It isn't just coalminers in Queensland and the Hunter who are being shafted by the mining sector and the Morrison government. The job security committee also heard from the electricians who are working on major iron and gold projects out west. They are also being forced onto labour hire contracts rather than being employed directly. These sparkies would only speak to the committee in camera. After hearing their evidence, it was very clear why they wouldn't speak out publicly. They revealed that labour hire companies are using software called ERMS to record and track any workers who speak out about their pay and conditions, any workers who speak to a union and any workers who speak out about safety issues. There is an online database that the labour hire companies can all access, and they are blacklisting mine workers who speak out or stand up for their rights.

Of course, that isn't all. The electricians told us it was common to get hired for a job at a remote mine site for $60 an hour. Once you have flown in, you get told the rate is actually $50 per hour. Then you have a choice of either taking the lower rate or waiting around camp, without pay, until the end of the week for the next flight. They told us about the disgraceful conditions of the housing and food at these remote mine sites. One witness had caught scabies multiple times from hot-bedding and the company not cleaning or maintaining the sanitary precautions that are necessary in those sorts of situations. They told us about what they call 'suicide shifts'—four weeks on, one week off. One of the electricians said he had seen two people take their own lives on the mine site. One had hung himself in his room, and the very next day someone else was moving into it.

Those harrowing stories are what is really going on in mine sites around Australia. In 1996, 94 per cent of mine workers in the Queensland coal sector were directly employed. Today, the number is just 50 per cent. I asked the mining companies and the labour hire companies why they're doing this. The answer is obvious. It's obvious to everyone, and it's certainly obvious to everyone working in the industry; it's about cutting costs, silencing dissent and maximising profits and an imbalance in labour bargaining. The spin they came up with was obscene. The response was that it's actually the mine workers who want to live and work like this. One labour hire firm, One Key, said:

Experience tells us that employees enjoy this flexibility and in many cases, enjoy the benefits of casual employment.

What One Key is saying is that employees apparently enjoy being paid 24 per cent less than the direct employees of the mine operator, doing the exact same job on the exact same rosters. They're saying that the employees enjoy not receiving appropriate leave entitlements, that they enjoy being sacked with one hour's notice and that they enjoy the fact that, if they speak out, they can be blacklisted from the industry for life. This is an infantile and insulting argument.

The committee asked the Isaac Regional Council in the Bowen Basin about those arguments. Councillor Kelly Vea Vea, community leader and deputy mayor, said:

… that's as misleading as it is downright offensive … it's really frustrating because mining companies create new workforce structures that deprive workers of genuine choice, and then they say the workers actually didn't want to do that anyway.

Mayor Anne Baker said of the labour hire in the region:

… there can be absolutely no mistake that this completely undermines the socioeconomic health of our regional and remote communities and is an offensive insult that continues to be allowed to happen.

I couldn't agree more. In the Isaac region and around Australia, in industries that previously provided good, middle-class jobs—they paid enough to put food on the table, raise a family and maintain a home—we're now seeing pay and conditions stripped away so that middle-class jobs are no longer receiving middle-class pay. The industrial relations system is broken. It needs to be rectified. People need to have the appropriate bargaining strength to deal with these sorts of rorts and rip-offs, and the unethical companies that are competing with good companies and gaming the system, whether it's in coalmining or in other industries, need to be held to account.